Gender differences in the intention to get vaccinated against COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis

AIM: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to analyse gender differences in COVID-19 vaccination intentions. SUBJECT AND METHODS: PubMed, Web of Science and PsycInfo were searched (November 2020 to January 2021) for studies reporting absolute frequencies of COVID-19 vaccination intentions by gender. Averaged odds ratios comparing vaccination intentions among men and women were computed. Descriptive analyses of the studies were reported. RESULTS: Sixty studies were included in the review and data from 46 studies (n = 141,550) were available for meta-analysis. A majority (58%) of papers reported men to have higher intentions to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Meta-analytic calculations showed that significantly fewer women stated that they would get vaccinated than men, OR 1.41 (95% CI 1.28 to 1.55). This effect was evident in several countries, and the difference was bigger in samples of health care workers than in unspecified general population samples. CONCLUSION: This systematic review and meta-analysis found lower vaccination intentions among women than men. This difference is discussed in the light of recent data on actual vaccination rates in different countries. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10389-021-01677-w.